The People Of The Lie

Quotes

1. The reality of the matter is that the naming of evil is still in a primitive stage.

   p. 99

2. 

   The only power that Satan has is through human belief in its lies.

   p. 237

3. 

   ... As (Malachi) Martin points out, it is terribly important to understand that Satan is a spirit. I have said I have met Satan, and this is true. But it is not tangible in the way that matter is tangible. It no more has horns, hooves, and a forked tail than God has a long white beard. Even the name, Satan, is just a name we have given to something basically nameless... It is spirit.

   p. 224

4. 

   By allowing ourselves to be easily and blatantly defrauded, we as a whole people participated in the evil of the Johnson administration. The evil — the years of lying and manipulation — of the Johnson administration was directly conducive to the whole atmosphere of lying and manipulation and evil that pervaded our presence in Vietnam during those years. It was in this atmosphere that My Lai occurred in March 1968. Task Force Barker was hardly even aware that it had run amok that day, but, then, America was not significantly aware either in early 1968 that it too had almost unredeemably lost its bearings.

   p. 279

5. 

   I know no more accurate epithet for Satan than the Father of Lies.

   p. 237

6. 

   Satan has no power except in a human body.

7. 

   Compartmentalization is not the root of all evil; it is, however, the principal psychological mechanism of evil. Deprive an evil man of his capacity to compartmentalize, and he will be like a general without an army. Or better yet, he will undergo a conversion to goodness — a conversion to integrity.

   p. 101

8. 

   While Eastern religions have a far more developed understanding of spiritual growth, they have paid comparatively little attention to the phenomenon of human evil.

9. 

   This is a dangerous book.

   p. 1

10. 

    Evil can be thought of as the exercise of political power — that is, the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion in order to avoid extending oneself for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth.

    p. 89

11. 

    Evil is that force ... residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness.

12. 

    My favorite definition of evil is that it is militant ignorance.

    p. 178

13. 

    At the other end of the human spectrum from the saints lie the least free, the evil. All one can see of them is the mud. And it all looks the same. In Chapter 3 I offered a clinical, nosological description of the evil personality. It is extraordinary how well the evil fit the mould. Once you’ve seen one evil person, you’ve essentially seen them all. Even psychotics, whom we are accustomed to thinking of as the most seriously deranged, are more interesting. (Indeed, there is some reason to suspect that in certain cases psychosis is chosen as a preferable alternative to evil.)

    Then how is it that psychiatrists have until now failed to recognize such a distinct, rigid type? It is because they have brought the pretence of respectability. They have been deceived by what Harvey M. Cleckley called ‘the mask of sanity.’ As my priest friend commented, evil is ‘the ultimate disease.’ Despite their pretence of sanity, the evil are the most insane of all.

    It is to the incredibly dreary insanity of the Adolf Eichmanns of this world that Hannah Arendt was referring when she spoke of ‘the banality of evil.’ Thomas Merton put it this way:

    "One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane."

    p. 304

14. 

    I have come to suspect that many cases of schizophrenia may in fact be the result of evil being passed from parents to children ... it is possible that some children, faced with the choice of either becoming evil themselves or utterly losing their minds, choose the latter.

    Evil is contagious. The children of the evil are often damaged for life.

    p. 127

15. 

    The spirit of evil is one of unreality, but it itself is real. To think otherwise is to be misled.

    p. 208

16. 

    There are a number of different theological models of evil ... This book will concern itself solely with the subject of human evil, and its primary focus will be on 'bad people'.

    p. 7

17. 

    Dangerous though a psychology of evil might be, it will be more dangerous not to have one.

    p. 303

18. 

    Who in the hell is Satan? I don't know.

    p. 225

19. 

    Whenever the roles of individuals within a group become specialized, it becomes both possible and easy for the individual to pass the moral buck to some other part of the group. In this way, not only does the individual forsake his conscience but the conscience of the group as a whole can become so fragmented and diluted as to be nonexistent.

    p. 249

20. 

    If we attempt te deal with (human) evil by destroying it, we will also end up destroying ourselves, spiritually if not physcially. And we are likely to take some innocent people with us as well.

    p. 306

21. 

    It would, I believe, be quite appropriate to classify evil people as constituting a specific variant of the narcisstic personality disorder.

    p. 105

22. 

    The time is right, I believe, for psychiatry to recognize a distinct new type of personality disorder to encompass those I have named evil. In addition to the abrogation of responsibility that characterizes all personality disorders, this one would specifically be distinguished by:

    (a) consistent destructive, scapegoating behaviour, which may often be quite subtle.

    (b) excessive, albeit usually covert, intolerance to criticism and other forms of narcissistic injury.

    (c) pronounced concern with a public image and self-image of respectability, contributing to a stability of life-style but also to pretentiousness and denial of hateful feelings or vengeful motives.

    d) intellectual deviousness, with an increased likelihood of a mild schizophreniclike disturbance of thinking at times of stress.

    p. 146

23. 

    It has often seemed to me that those who are most dedicated to the light are the ones most subject to assault by the forces of darkness. Evil always hates the light. And yet these attacks are not necessarily destructive. In the long run they may serve the purposes of grace. For through them the servants of the light may become more firmly committed to their cause, their dedication tested and refined.

    p. 212

24. 

    Lying is both a cause and a manifestation of evil.

25. 

    Among the reasons that the Oedipus complex is so important in psychiatry is that adults who have failed to resolve it usually have great difficulty in accomplishing many of the renunciations required for successful adult adjustments. They still have not learned that they cannot have their cake and eat it too.

    p. 176

26. 

    It is not the weak or the stupid who are most likely to be the targets of evil, but the strong and the good. Evil seeks to destroy the life force wherever it is most manifest.

    p. 194

That’s all the quotes.

26 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more